Writing (or Equation-Writing) Assignments

Create a Balanced Assessment Plan

As you create an assessment plan that includes both formative and summative assessments, consider how you are sequencing assessments, and where students will receive feedback (from you or from their peers). In some situations, it may make sense to reduce the number of assignments or replace one assignment with the draft of another. 

Create a Canvas Assignment or Quiz

For an assessment that takes the form of a paper, written or visual project, data analysis, or some other document, you may use a Canvas Assignment or Quiz for submission and grading.

• Canvas Assignment
  • Double-check that the assignment submission type is “online” and allows for file submissions. You may have already created this assignment in Canvas in the process of managing your gradebook.
• Canvas Quiz
  • Ensure that the question type is "File Upload"

Ask Students to Hand Write

Writing equations and diagrams in a digital format can be hard. Moving to remote instruction doesn’t require abandoning handwritten work. Ask students to take pictures of their work submit via:

• Canvas Assignments  (Use File Upload submission type)
• Canvas Quizzes (Use File Upload question type)
• Email

Use Rubrics to Set Expectations

Rubrics will outline assessment expectations for students, and make grading more efficient for instructors. In Canvas, a Rubric is an assessment tool for communicating expectations of quality. Rubrics are typically comprised of rows and columns. Rows are used to define the various criteria being used to assess an assignment. Columns are used to define levels of performance for each criterion. See the Canvas Guide: What are Rubrics?

For help creating or revising writing assignments or rubrics, contact the Center for Writing.

Educate Students about Plagiarism

The built-in Turnitin plagiarism check tool in Canvas can be used in formative assessments to help students check their own writing, and learn more about what constitutes plagiarism. If you are using Turnitin as part of a graded summative assessment, make sure to communicate with students that this tool is enabled, allow them opportunity to practice, and provide links to resources should they need help.